- Meaning of self help
Self help means taking a matter into one’s hands and resorting to extra legal methods to enforce a legal right. The use of self help is commonly found in debt recovery and tenancy matters where landlords or creditors are exasperated by intransigent tenants or debtors.
- Locus Classicus
The locus classicus on this matter is the case of Governor Lagos State v. Ojukwu (1986). In that case the Lagos State Government ejected the occupant of the premises while the matter was still pending in court. The Supreme Court condemned the resort to self help as an act of executive lawlessness and held that that once a matter is pending before a court, no person has the right to take the matter into his own hands and take possession of the premises by the use of law enforcement agents. In Akinkugbe v Ewulum Holdings (2008), the landlord had forcefully ejected tenants out of their rented premises. The trial court awarded N3m as aggravated damages against the landlord for trespass. The Supreme Court said (per Aderemi JSC), “A landlord who resorts to self help in a bid to recover possession of the premises tenanted by him runs foul of the law and is liable in damages.” See also, Ihenacho v Uzochukwu (1997).
- Tenancy matters
3.1 A person who first engages in self help cannot later seek the assistance of the court on the same matter. Furthermore, that person not only runs the risk of legal action but may also incur aggravated damages for the misconduct. In Eloichin v Mbadiwe (1986), while the tenancy was subsisting the landlord entered the premises to forcefully eject the tenant and throw out their property. The tenant sued the landlord for trespass for unlawful entry into the premises and for trespass to their goods and claimed aggravated damages. It is settled law that even where a tenancy has come to an end the landlord cannot go into the premises to eject the tenant without first issuing statutory notices and obtaining an order of court for possession. Aniagolu JSC said,
“The laws of all civilized nations have always frowned at self help if for no other reason that they engender breaches of peace. It is no doubt annoying, and more often than not, frustrating for a landlord to watch helplessly his property in the hands of an intransigent tenant who is paying too little for his holding, or keeps the premises untidy, or is irregular in his payment of rents or is otherwise an unsuitable tenant for the property. The temptation is very strong for the landlord to simply walk into the property and retake immediate possession. But that is precisely what the law forbids.”
- Apart from the danger of aggravated damages as a civil remedy of the tenant, the landlord also runs the risk of criminal prosecution. Section 44 of the Lagos State Tenancy Law 2011, states that any person who demolishes, alters, or modifies a building for the purpose of ejecting a tenant without an order of court and any person who forcibly ejects a tenant or threatens or molests a tenant by action or words with a view to ejecting that tenant shall be guilty of an offence and be liable to a fine of N250,000 or maximum of six months imprisonment. Even when the tenancy has expired the tenant becomes a statutory tenant and is entitled to the protection of the law until an order of possession is granted to the landlord.
- Self help during legal proceedings
4.1 A person cannot at the same time commence legal proceedings and resort to self help. In Duwin Pharmaceuticals v Beneks Pharmaceuticals (2008), Duwin sued Beneks for infringement of their registered trade mark and obtained an interim injunction against them. The trial court later vacated the injunction and granted an accelerated hearing of the matter. Duwin was aggrieved with the order of the trial court and decided to report the matter to the police and also went on appeal. The Supreme Court held that the resort to self help was contrary to the rule of law. Aloma Mukhtar JSC (now CJN) said,
“It is disturbing that the appellant (Duwin) after obtaining the above orders should proceed to petition the police on the same matter. The order as can be understood was restraining the respondents (Beneks) from inter-alia “manufacturing the product in controversy, and so should cover whatever the appellant deemed to be the respondents interference with the product in controversy, albeit adulteration of the product. The argument of learned counsel for the appellant that the report lodged to the police was on adulteration of the product, does not reduce the gravity and consequence of the action of seeking police intervention and self-help. The argument is not at all persuasive. The appellant sought the court’s intervention, and the court adequately intervened by giving the reliefs and orders sought, but then the appellant has proved that, that was not enough for it was not satisfied, but resorted to self help. This action definitely was contrary to the principle that a litigant will not abuse a court’s process that is already in existence by resorting to self-help, and the courts will not tolerate such action or abuse.”
- The case of Oyegbemi v Aromire (2012) was actually a chieftancy dispute but what the Court of Appeal said in that case is instructive. Ogunwumiju JCA quoted the dictum of Nnaemeka-Agu JSC of the Supreme Court in Trustees Apostolic Church v Olowoleni (1990),
“Once parties have turned their dispute over to the court for determination, the right to resort to self-help ends. So it is not permissible for one of the parties to take any step during the pendency of the suit which may have the effect of foisting on the court a situation of complete helplessness or which may give the court the impression that the court is being used as a mere subterfuge to tie the hands of one party while the party helps himself extra-judicially. Both parties are to await the result of the litigation and other appropriate orders of court before acting further.”
4.3 In the Duwin v Beneks case, Chukwuma-Eneh JSC expressed doubts about whether the police complaint was actually a resort to self help since it concerned a criminal matter, the adulteration of products. This author is of the humble view that, where certain aspects of a case are criminal in nature then it should be reported to the police first before commencing legal action on the civil aspects of the matter. In Att. Gen. Federation v Dawodu (1995) the Supreme Court held that, where a person is prosecuted for an offence, it is legitimate to commence civil proceedings on the same facts against that person even while the criminal proceedings are still pending. Therefore where the same facts raise both civil remedies and criminal sanctions it is advisable to start the criminal proceedings before the civil action is commenced.
Jide Bodede LLM(Lond)
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